Raybag

Good morning!
My wife and I are in the early planning stages for our 2016 tour. Currently we are looking at southern Spain, Andalucia, or southern Portugal. Or a combination of both. We prefer smaller villages and don't mind climbing at all.
My question has to do with the two airports we're considering, Faro in Portugal or Malaga in Spain. Does anybody have experience using either of these? We would be travelling with our bikes in cardboard boxes and would need to either save them for the return flight, or have new ones available.
We usually stash our box at a hotel while we're out for our month but we would love to be able to do point to point, fly into Faro and out of Malaga.
Any experience getting from either airport to local hotels with bikes, either boxed or built?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Raybag!

gerryl

I have not used either airport, but have been to both.
Malaga is a much larger than Faro, I would suspect it would be pretty easy to find a bike shop with boxes in Malaga, or even the materials necessary to build your own box if need be.

indyfabz

I spent 7 weeks touring Andalucia back in '00. Great place to ride, at least back then. (Be aware that the area is not doing well economically these days.) Lots of empty roads connecting small and mid-sized villages and towns. Even Cordoba was no problem riding into and out of, and there is a nice campground right on the edge of the city, within walking distance of the center. I would avoid the Andalucian coast. Most of it overdeveloped. The traffic is super heavy in man places and the views are not great. The plastic tarp farming area around El Ejido is abysmal.

As for planning, I highly recommend two things: "The Rough Guide to Andalucia" and the Michelin map of the territory. The former is a detailed travel guide that does not sugar coat things. The latter is an excellent map showing even the smallest of roads. I used the book to figure out where I wanted to go and then connected the places using the smallest roads whenever possible. Worked out fine.

I flew from the states to Sevilla via London. I was camping so I spent the first night at the campground that is literally right next to the airport. The place had a storage garage and happily stored my box ("caja" in Espanol) for the duration of the trip. I took at cab as I arrived after 9 p.m., but you can ride from the airport into town. i cannot remember if there is a frontage road heading west from the airport towards town. At the time I was there, there wasn't heading east towards the airport, but that's o.k. I saw people riding the autovia heading east since it was the only through road in that area. In any event, I cannot be any worse than Malaga.

Check with your airline. You might not even have to box your bike. I ended up leaving mine behind. Rode to the airport and flew with the bike in a bag.

When are you planning on going? It gets super hot there in the summer. I was there from mid-March to the end of April. If I did it again, I would probably go later in March. Sevilla in mid-March was a pleasant 75 or so, but the weather in Sierra Morena--the mountain range that borders the north of the territory--was wet and a bit chilly at times.

bikebark

We flew in and out of Malaga 12 years ago. We rode directly out of the airport and back to the airport. At that time there was no problem riding to and from the airport. We rode directly to a campground far from the airport. We could not get bike boxes at the airport when we returned so our bikes flew unboxed to Madrid. We got boxes at the Madrid airport and boxed our bikes when we changed planes for the flight back to the U.S.A. I believe that there is now a train running from the airport into town.

Caretaker

I flew in and out of Faro two years ago and same with Malaga three years ago both times from Dublin and on Aer Lingus with large plastic bag (airline supplied) on outward journey and un-bagged or boxed on return.
Malaga: there's a Decathlon store about 15 minutes cycle away from the airport in the estate on the opposite side of the main road that runs past. You should be able to get a bike box there but advise contacting them ahead of departure. Good medium sized airport.



Faro: It's quite close to the sea and when I flew in I had arranged a Warmshower ( https://www.warmshowers.org/ )stay with a host on Praia de Faro which is only about 20 minutes cycle away over the bridge. I then the next morning went back over the bridge and turned left through a nature reserve and then inland after a couple of kms. through one of the most exclusive residential areas in Portugal built round a golf resort. I know there's a bike rental shop in Almancil nearby because I bought a spare tube there.


Praia de Faro

cycle path through nature reserve

House in Quinta do Lago golf resort.

Doug64

Four years ago my wife and I rode from Lisbon to Velencia before heading north on Spain's Mediterranean coast. It was the first leg of a 3-month tour that ended in Amsterdam. We did use a bus for part of southern Spain to get to Velencia faster and out of the heat.

We still talk about doing another tour concentrating on Portugal. It is a great place to ride. However, we experienced temperatures of 109F in late June and early July in southern Spain. I enjoyed Mediterranean coast in spite of what everyone said. It was 20 degrees cooler!

Check some of the journals on crazyguyonabike for ideas and information. Adventure cycling also had a good article about riding in Portugal by Willy Wier.

Caretaker

Should add I did a ten day solo tour of Southern Portugal in May 2013 and here's a link to my photos of the tour.

https://1drv.ms/1ga0WgV

Here's photos of my trip from Malaga airport up to Rhonda and on to a small town where we stayed with a friend. Didn't cover as much territory. It was in April I think.

https://1drv.ms/1KEyIcI